1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a technique for providing image information about a wide area to a terminal user over a communication network such as the Internet. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and method for providing image information through mobile communication Base Station (BS) antennas.
2. Description of the Related Art
Owing to the development of communication networks and the rapid development of image signal processing technology and its various applications, a service for monitoring a desired area visually at a remote location is provided in various manners.
A classical example of the service is a security service using a surveillance camera. Basically, a security service system is configured with a plurality of surveillance cameras installed at appropriate positions in a monitoring area and a remote monitoring center for collecting captured information from the surveillance cameras and displaying the captured information on an appropriate display, so that a security manager can monitor the surveillance area. A fire, theft, gas leakage, etc. can be more accurately detected by additionally using sensors of various types.
To use this security service system, each user should install a set of equipments including surveillance cameras and monitoring images from the surveillance cameras has limitations in place or time.
In this context, a variety of services have recently been deployed, which provide image information to portable terminals equipped with a camera function and a transmission/reception function, such as portable phones and PDAs, over the Internet. A basic requirement for these services is installation of a plurality of (as many as possible) photographing devices at appropriate locations. Hence, there are lots of difficulties in securing installation areas, reliable power supply to the photographing devices, and management and networking of the photographing devices.
Meanwhile GOOGLE is providing the service of providing satellite photos over a global range through the Internet. The satellite images have too a low resolution to make relatively small terrestrial objects identified. Moreover, since the satellite photos are confined to aerial image data, GOOGLE also has limitations in providing information.